Dear CFDers,

We are using CFD in our research on fluid flow and heat transfer. We have presently a certain package (no names...) and consider adding a new one. I had written to the major developers (CFX, STAR, FLOW3D, FLUENT and CFDRC), asking for details.

The first 3 were responsive, which is quite natural (if you wish to sell). Strangely, the communication with FLUENT is terribly slow. The last message I received (on 19/6/03, from Sharon Everts Marketing Administrator Fluent Inc. 10 Cavendish Court Lebanon, NH 03766 se@fluent.com) promised:

"Your request was sent to the European offices. I am forwarding again and hopefully someone will contact you short. I apologize for the delay"

Nothing since then. Could it be I should contact someone else directly?

Stranger is CFDRC reaction. Since my first message to them (on 28/4/03 to the address taken from their website - sales@cfdrc.com) I received nothing except confirmations that my messages (incl. many reminders) were displayed. Once again, should I contact someone else directly?

very strange, indeed. i wouldn't contact them again! how fast, do you think, their support will answer on problems? there are lots of other cfd-codes around which will provide you with the same good (or bad) solutions.

Agreed! My interpretation of their response (or lack there of) is that your business is not important. If that is how the relationship is evolving now, what do you expect in the future when you have a critical deadline to meet and a problem with their tools? There are enough other CFD companies out there that are hungry for your business AND can meet your technical needs.

Hi,

we would be happy to answer swiftly to your requests. We also offer advanced CFD solutions, and won't let any potential or existing customer waiting for weeks or even days until we provide an answer to his questions.

Best regards,

Bruno NUMECA International

It IS strange that two companies don't really respond.

I would get on their case. A phone call, a letter to the company president, anything to get around the front line marketing people. I'd go with the phone call and be prepared to get insistent with the switchboard person if he/she won't help.

Why?

First, this behavior is representative of a serious staffing problem or a glitch in their e-mail system.

Second, given that they have something abnormal in their organization, you may actually get better than usual service once you get to a human - they should appreciate learning that they have a problem.

I really don't think it's true that you'll get the same answers no matter what company you use. It may be that Fluent or CFDRC is THE code that you need, depending of course on your problem.

Good Luck!

Dear CFD user,

I appologize for our company, CFDRC, not responding to your request. This should not have happened and we will do everything possible to avoid this from happening again in the future.

Your business is important to us and we would like to learn what we can do for you.

Please feel free to contact me personally under Karl@CFDRC.com and let me know about your requirements.

Sincerely, Karlheinz Peters

Thank you all for your resposnses. First of all, my intention was to find a connection to the companies, not tell anybody how their service is. It turned out that CFDRC indeed resopnded, and I had already sent my message directly to Karlheinz Peters. I even received an extra suggestion from another CFD package developer.

I agree that if the response is so poor, it is not too promising for the future relationship (mainly in the support response time). If I had the choice, I would have gave up these companies. However, there are relatively few packages that are candidates for our problems, which are physically difficult and require additional (massive) user coding.

As for Jim Park's suggestions, first of all I am afraid I lack the temper to fight a company, and also having long international phone calls to try and find the right person that will finally refer to my needs is too expensive for our budget.

Thanks for your good intentions!

Hmm, If the cost of an international phone call or two is prohibitive, just wait untill you find out the cost of licensing any one of these codes!

I'm sorry my suggestions won't work for you.

Please understand that I do not think these companies are deliberately hard to contact. My experience over a number of years is that their marketing is quite aggressive!

Rather, I think that someone in FLUENT and CFDRC is in the the wrong job! It is all too easy to have a person with the wrong skills dealing with the public. But the company's management has to know this in order to correct the situation. You don't need to FIGHT the company to make a change, but you do have to tell the right person.

It's good you've gotten some positive responses from CFDRC and from other folks interested in your business.

Good luck!

I recommended to one my PhD candidates (who knows Fluent and Gambit better than any one I know of) to apply for a position in Fluent, NH. I have 25 yrs of CFD experience. I know he is brilliant (he is working for some private company now). The stupid Fluent management even didn't acknowledge his application. I honestly believe that 75% of Fluent people is quite dump (technically). No offence please.

I am currently looking at various suppliers as well. I have pretty good success with Chris Humphries at Fluent

here are his details Dr Chris Humphries Business Development Manager ch@fluent.co.uk +44 (0)114 281 8888

Dear CFD user,

First of all I would like to thank you for contacting Fluent and apologise for any delay in responding to your e-mails. We at Fluent work with local affiliates and a distributor network to support you locally. I understand your response to Fluent was forwarded to a local agent in Israel. I also believe that Fluent's local distributor in Israel has been in touch with you to finalise your CFD requirements. Your business is important to us so please do feel free to contact me directly if you need further information.

Yours sincerely,

Atul Karanjkar (atul@fluent.co.uk)

"Your business is important to us" ....sounds like something you hea ron the phone all the itme "Your business is important to us, please stay on the line"!! In fairness, I did some work a few years back and Fluent were pretty helpful to me.

As a representative of one of the developers (Flow Science / FLOW-3D(R)) that you contacted initially and from whom you DID get a response, I'd like to make sure that what you received from us was helpful and invite you to contact us again if you have further questions. Because your name in this posting is not given, I cannot know whether there has already been follow-up. So please, get in touch with us if any questions remain.

Thank you all for your responses and help, which gave me threads to continue directly with the companies.

My experience with Fluent was that they reply but slow. First, they have to allocate a disk space for you to sent the grid you did and the problem files. Then they have to get someone to try them out and find out the problem. I contacted them twice and to tell the truth, they were decent but slow. The first time they did something to make the problem converge to correct solution and sent me the files. The second time they helped by sending a test case to train on 2D But Fluent ended up to have a bug that they did not fix and it gave me hard time. like crashing Gambit while generating the grid. Wrong reporting of average quantities. So most of the time you are finding a bug that they don't want to confuse it.